Our health insurance plan administrator (the publisher) took a tour of the Affordable Care Act exchange and found out why people hate it so much: it offers competition to the incumbent health care providers in Iowa. In our case, we found that CoOpportunity Health of Iowa, a new cooperative health plan, offers a better plan with lower rates than our existing plan with Wellmark of Iowa. Wellmark is not participating in the exchange for a year, and as the holder of a near monopoly in Iowa, the Blues are playing with fire.

Much was made Tuesday about how the new Affordable Care website, healthcare.gov, was experiencing technical difficulties because of tens of millions of people attempting to access the site on the first day. (And foes of the Affordable Care Act claim Americans are opposed to it?)